#creatures

02-10-2012

I know you're not going to believe me, but I've decided that I don't care at this point. I need to get this out. Whether you believe me or not, this has to get out.

The night was dark. The only light emitted into the tiny bedroom was from the door that stood slightly ajar. The room was clean for a four year old little boy. There weren't any toys covering the floor and no clothes thrown about the room. The little boy slept soundly; light snores could be heard coming deep from within his chest. His arm twitched fervently, but became still after a few seconds. The sound of his breathing rang out across the silent room.

I can hear them when it's quiet. They hide in the vents. They laugh at me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because they know they've got me. I can't do anything to stop them. There's no one I can tell, everyone would think I'm insane. Now I just have to wait. They'll come to collect me when they're ready. Not on my time, god no. They won't come for me until long after my mind has completely unhinged.

I guess I won’t escape the water on this spring evening. As rain pounds on me with the rhythm of an icy waterfall, the pain of the cold is warming me more than my nightgown ever could. The warmth of my breath fights through the bitter darkness of the evening only to be beaten back by the unrelenting frigidity of the wind at my face. Perhaps the warmness of the gulf would radiate just enough to find some comfort in this depressing storm.

James had just moved to upstate New York and he knew no one except for a few flaky work associates. One night during a January blizzard, he heard a faint “meow” emanating from the nearby alleyway adjacent his apartment. He ventured into the snowstorm and found a half frozen, gaunt kitten in the alley next to his apartment.

Bedtime is supposed to be a happy event for a tired child; for me it was terrifying. While some children might complain about being put to bed before they have finished watching a film or playing their favourite video game, when I was a child, night time was something to truly fear. Somewhere in the back of my mind it still is.

I used to be fearless. Horror movies never really scared me. Scary books had no effect. Haunted houses are meaningless. I was never a child who slept with the covers over their face, or with a night light. As a little girl, I never felt the need to crawl into bed with my mother after having a nightmare. I never really had nightmares to begin with, and the few that I did, most would never consider a nightmare at all.

Until my mid-teens I hadn’t lived in one house for more than I year. Though I’ve now been living in this house the longest, and my family thinks of it as home since we pay mortgage on it, I’ve always felt that my earlier houses were home. The “Yellow House” wasn’t one of those. I lived there before I entered school so my memory of the pale yellow house fuzzy, but almost all of my memories in that house took place upstairs in the converted attic where my siblings and I had our rooms. The house…

Why do you do it? You don’t know why, but you do. You make sure the windows are locked, you check the other side of the door, and your closet…You even check under your bed. Why do you do this? Does ripping open the shower curtain and seeing nothing there make you feel safe? Does scoping the area with your eyes after reading a scary story reassure you? Well, it shouldn’t. Because by the time you’ve looked, I’ve already hidden.

My cousin recently moved here from Secunderabad, India. On a recent road trip exploring America, we were shootin shit and exchanging ghost stories and laughing at similarities and differences between American ghost stories and Indian ghost stories when I asked her if she’s ever experienced anything supernatural. Her eyes widened as she averted her eyes to the window. Just when the silence was about to be too much for me, she softly responded “Yes. A few. One is troubling.”

When I was a child my family moved to a big old two-floor house, with big empty rooms and creaking floorboards. Both my parents worked so I was often alone when I came home from school. One early evening when I came home the house was still dark. I called out, “Mum?” and heard her sing song voice say “Yeeeeees?” from upstairs. I called her again as I climbed the stairs to see which room she was in, and again got the same “Yeeeeees?” reply.

I’ve always loved the movies. As a film fan, my attention would instantly snap to the TV when I caught a commercial for an upcoming movie. Most of the mindless, overproduced garbage Hollywood churns out is pretty forgettable, so whenever I discovered an indie film with a relatively fresh concept, I was excited to see something different.

Normally you sleep soundly, but the thunderstorm raging outside is stirring you from your sleep. You begin to doze, then another crash jolts you awake. The cycle lasts most of the night. So you lay there, eyes open and outward, looking at your room stretching out before you in oblong shadows. Your eyes move from nameless object, to object, until you reach your mirror, sitting adjacent to you across the room.

Mr. Angel sat next to me on the park bench. He is my best friend. I pointed to an old man that sat across from me. “What’s he doing Mr. Angel?” An unlit cigarette sat in the corner of the man’s mouth. His eyes were withered with age as he stared blankly at nothing. Mr. Angel leaned close to me as he whispered into my ear. “He’s looking for a woman he lost a long time ago.” He cooed. His words felt warm against my cheek as I smiled up at him. I liked his secrets; Mr. Angel knew everything.

A beautiful young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. On the news that night, they announced there is a serial killer on the loose in the area. Before she goes to bed, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows, but the one in the basement won’t lock. She decides to leave it unlocked, but locks the basement door and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.

During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, human-like creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.

There is, in a small national park somewhere in the US, a bike path. This bike path is hardly unusual: it is roughly twelve miles long, and makes a circuit around a small lake. Most of the path is wooded, and it is regarded by the locals as a beautiful little place to take a breather and catch some peace and quiet. Many who jog or bike along the path observe nothing out of the ordinary. But there are those lone bicyclists who happen across the Runner.

I first got in contact with Jack, my former landlord, a little over a year ago when I answered his newspaper ad. I was in a rush to move out as I had just broken up with my significant other, whom I shared an apartment with, and Jack was renting out the furnished basement of his house. The location was good and the price was a steal, and I moved in with a few boxes of personal items four days later.

While honeymooning in Maine, my wife and I stopped in the picturesque town of Boothbay on a particularly dreary and rainy day. Since our planned picnic was out of the question, we sought shelter in a dilapidated little antique store near the harbour. While my wife inspected the large chests and side tables near the door, I eagerly examined the antique tools and seafaring equipment inside the glass sales counter at the back. Being a collector of optics and mariner’s instruments, I hoped to find…